it complicates the complication
mood: 
irritated
irritatedmusic: Guess Who - No Time (Radio Paradise - DJ-mixed modern & classic rock, world, electronica & more - in
blackholly is right again, as usual. The "I'm too lazy to click a link" version: it's frankly misogynistic to identify a competent female protagonist as a "Mary Sue" because she's at the center of her story. She's at the center of her story because she's the goddamn protagonist.
Why is The Lord of the Rings about Frodo? Because he's the hobbit with the ring. If a different hobbit had had the ring, the book/trilogy would have been about a different hobbit.
When I pick up a book called The Great Gatsby or Anna Karenina or The World According to Garp, I'm pretty sure that Gatsby/Anna/Garp are going to be central to the narrative. This works for books with titles like The Wind-up Girl and Who Fears Death (a name, if you have not read it) and The Lies of Locke Lamora too. Hey, there's a name or an epithet in the title. Maybe this book is about this person!
So... if you find yourself uncomfortable with a lot of books by female authors, with female protagonists, and identifying a high percentage of those female as "Mary Sues," well... it is possible that the fault lies not in the protagonists, but in the reader*.
Sometimes a book is about a female character because there are female people in the world.
Crazy talk, I know, but there you go.
*This also applies if you find yourself often dismissing books with queer central characters as "slash."** Sometimes books are about gay people because gay people exist.
**If you are a slash fan, and trying to sell a book to your friends, letting them know it has the manlove is different. I'm talking about the "Straight boys need not read this because it has The Ghey in it" reviews. They say more about the reviewer than the book, is all I'm saying.
I can think of a number of books misleadingly titled after the heroine where a guy, or a bunch of guys, are the actual protagonists. I'm sure you can as well.
The reason Mary Sue is a gendered term was because it was invented in a predominantly female environment. That is, it was women reading writings by women about female characters, so it referred to female characters. Wesley Crusher and the reaction to him I think demonstrates that the concept isn't inherently gendered, even in that fandom. Fundamentally, people don't like characters that the author likes more than we do.
It is absolutely misogynistic to apply different standards to male protagonists than female protagonists, but that doesn't mean we have to like glorified protagonists of any gender, especially when accompanied by tell over show writing. I tend to think we overrate books about male protagonists on general principle (this being The Great American Novel problem). It's part of why I'm a big fan of authors that write about ensembles of variable characters instead.
Which is a point that most of the damned planet seems to miss.
We don't get to win, alas. Those damn cooties are just so scary.
But the two who are most like me are Elspeth Dunsany (come on, she's such an intentional Mary Sue! She's even named Elizabeth--and she had sparkly eyes! and everybody falls in love with her! And she's the world's smartest Canadian!) and Matthew Szczegielniak.
*g*
Matthew is really just me with a penis, a better build, and more magic powers. And different angst.
I love him so.
...I sort of want meander into a defense of fluffy heroes and escapism at this point, but I don't think that comment is fully cooked yet. Anyway, thanks for posting this.
Crazy talk? Not.
Unforgivable for being a Truth.
Tiredness brings out this kind of cranky in me sometimes.
Mary Sue: just FYI
The term, "Mary Sue" was originally coined by Paula Smith and in a recent interview for TWC she discusses the origin of there term, what it means, etc.
Including the link in case anyone is interested...
Edited at 2011-08-08 02:30 am (UTC)
Re: Mary Sue: just FYI
Re: Mary Sue: just FYI
My own take is that I agree that the Mary Sue label gets used way too much and inappropriately for all fic [I hate labels anyway and I hate making distinctions among pieces of writing; there's good writing and bad writing and that's it].
But I think at the core of the term, as the discussion with Paula Smith makes clear, is the idea of psychic space or lack of it. A Mary Sue character is so completely identified with the writer, that there's no psychic space left inside for the reader to climb in to and play along. The result is that readers tend to feel alienated ---it's like the writer created the character solely for his/her enjoyment and satisfaction and left the reader out with his or her nose pressed against the glass.
And I should add that, as someone who's taught writing for almost 30 years, I find that Mary Sue is more an early stage of development that, like Piaget's stages of development for children, all writers must go through.
Edited at 2011-08-08 12:55 pm (UTC)
*
Re: *
As that is directly contrary to the spirit in which I wrote it, and the spirit of Holly's post.
My point is this: it's misogynistic to run around broadly tarring female protagonists written by female writers in general with dismissive labels. If we want to criticize female writers and female protagonists, it's appropriate to be specific and detailed in our criticism, not airily dismissive.
And it's also appropriate to do it else-internets rather than here and now.
Re: *
Re: Mary Sue: just FYI
I think you may get airline miles...